Hawk-Shaming

 Marina and I have become addicted to a little blog called 'Dogshaming'.  Everyday we look at the latest entries into the world of dogs that should be ashamed of their behavior.  Today we have a new entry into the world of shamed animals...

 This hawk made its way into our chicken yard and could not get out.  Vince was coming up from the lower meadow behind the coop when he heard the racket and came running.  Trying to find a way out of the pen was this hawk... angry, panicked, but mostly... ashamed! 

We did some clever maneuvering and were able to release it before it hurt itself or any of our animals.  It was only able to fly across the street before it had to stop and rest.  We continued giving it chase so that it would not think about returning.  This is giving me pause to consider how much smarter a hawk is than a chicken.  His escape tacktic seemed sharp and clever.  And his brain is about the same size as that of a chicken.  Hum...

Meanwhile, all the chickens were hiding in the coop like a bunch of chickens.

And the ducks huddled in the driveway considering which of the hens may not have made it. I thought perhaps they were considering why we let the hawk go. But, seriously, I doubt that.  It is unfortunate that they are much more interested in gossip and the fate of their coop mates than any husbandry philosophy.

McNeil School Fall Carnival (otherwise known as the Halloween Show!)

 The evening sunlight is stretching dramatically over the bay now.  The leaves have all vanished from the trees.  The wind is making those same trees creak devilishly. It is the perfect time of year for everyone in the Greear house to pretend to be someone else...if only for a few days.  This can only mean one thing is coming! 

 

  Halloween!

 

This year Falcom is being possessed by his alter ego:  Sexy Chucky.  The actual 'Chucky' from the Chucky horror movie franchise was not cute enough for his tastes.

As you can see from this picture, the full 'Sexy Chucky' effect is missing the orange stockings.  Orange stockings do not stretch over the thighs of sexy islanders!

Marina is embodying her alter-ego, Hermione Granger.  She made everyone in the family a wand last night out of alder wood.  She is smart, brave, and heroic! 

They have just arrived home with their loot.  Isn't it interesting?   A couple of years ago all she wanted to do at the carnival was work in the fishing booth.  Now, she plays with friends and is not afraid of the haunted house.  Falcom is not afraid of the haunted house either.  He spent his time working in the haunted house as a 'sexy dead dancer'. 

Oh!  How my children have grown.  Oh!  How I love them...

A Month? What the Heck!

 It is a sad situation when every picture taken in a family is work or school related.  That is where I find myself positioned at this time.  This picture for instance was taken on our "Coffee Cup factory tour".  Marina and Iris had a great time learning how paper cups are made. 

 Here is a picture in a dress given to her by Grandpa last summer which I never took a picture of her in.  That is our friend Katy in the background.

 Katy gave us these beautiful dishes so that we could have fun tea parties with the Girl Scouts.  Marina learned how to make rainbow swirls with the frosting thanks to Sharon at Two Sisters.

 Vince came home from hunting and gave Winchester this huge bone.  Luckily it vanished because it gave him terrible gas.

Marina and I took this picture so that we could email it to the orthodontist and show him the part of her gear that was bothering her.  I think it is cool to keep track of all the changes going on in her mouth.

Falcom had a great month of soccer.  It caused there to be a great deal of driving back and forth to town, but was well worth it!  I think he will play again next year.

Willie is Willie.  His job at the harbor is finished.  He is waiting for his next job while looking for the next.  He is wonderful and Marina's best buddy.

My school is taking up a great deal of my time, even though it seems like it should be less...  less units should equal less work, right?  UG!

In two months we will find ourselves here:

And that will make all of this crasiness worth it!

Homeschooling - Marina

 

Marina was getting stomach aches.  They were annoying.  Mostly they annoyed me because they were happening right before bed each night and in the morning when she had to go to school.  I took her to the doctor after months of listening to her complain.  The doctor thought it could be stomach acid but probably not.  There was nothing that could be done.  The poor girl (and her father and mother) had to suffer through it.

Remarkably, since we have been homeschooling her stomach problems have ceased.

Why am I starting this blog with this health update?  Well, I was thinking I could explain our decision to homeschool by expouning on my belief in school choice.  I could go on for hours about my philosophy of education.  I could accredit it to our pending vacation.  All of those things are true.  

 The bottom line though, is that Marina was not doing well at McNeil.  Something that she could not define and that her teachers could not identify was bothering her and causing her stress.  Since she has been home the only time her stomach has been bothering her is when her dad is gone to work and she is looking for reasons to crawl into bed with me.

What does Greear Family homeschooling look like on the ground?  What are the days like?  Marina has an office where she has the privacy she feels she needs to complete the tasks that she and I have agreed to for the day.  These tasks include math, science, reading and writing.  We had a social studies lesson the other day at the Middleton Homestead when we showed up just in time for Marina to watch the ferrier shoe their horses.  On another day, we went to the Kilcher Homestead where Charlotte was preparing to use a ringer washer (yes, the kind my grandmother had) and Charlotte taught her about the phrase, "Don't get your tit caught in a ringer."  Important stuff.

She had a unit on bee studies and spent over an hour sitting out in the sun with her father watching as the worker bees violently kicked out drones and brought in many varieties of pollen in all different colors.  They then extracted and spun honey. 

She is taking Manerine lessons with her friend Abby from Min Hui every week.  Learning this type of Chinese is not easy, but she is good at it and is loving it. 

We vacation sat a bunny for a week.  All that caring for the bunny that Marina did convinced her full heartedly that she does not need to have a bunny, hamster, Guinna pig, or mouse living with her in her room ever.  Might have been the best lesson of the week. 

We have made pickles and jam.  Worked over the details of the Swiss Family Robinson and laughed about how that family "killed everything!"  We are moving on to the voyage of the KonTiki but the size of the volume is daunting to her. 

There have been days where the math and language work has had to be pulled from her irritated 'bumble bee trapped in a jar' self.  Her grumbling over having to rigorously follow the math and language arts plan has discouraged me more than once.  Then I went out to Razdolna to do my teaching practicum and I watched the kids:  their attention and drive fluctuates in and out.  They are not all interested in what their teacher is saying every minute of their day.  It's normal.  In all honestly, Marina may complain to start the task, but she is giving more attention to what she needs to be doing in that moment than she would have in a classroom full of distraction.

Has this affected my social life?  Well, it's a good thing Irene moved and I am not trying to juggle Regular Tuesday with her and my work at Grassroots Salon.  Having Marina around would have otherwise put a serious cramp in my gossip!  HA!  Just goes to show that homeschooling is even improving my karma!

Not to mention preparing her for a zombie apocolypse :).

Middle School - Falcom

I believe this first day of school picture embodies the perfection of Falcom's first day of middle school:   Notice the cool fashion,  Look at the hand on the hip, Don't pass by the sneer that is embedded on the face.  Why is there a sneer on his face?  Oh!  That is because his mother is keeping him from getting him to the bus stop on time.  Also, because his mother is taking his picture and it is wildly unnecessary.  Also, because his mother is a dork.

How is middle school for Falcom?  Let me have him tell you in his own words:

"Middle school is wonderful!  I have made lots of friends.  There are a lot of new teachers that are really kind.  Math is really awesome.  I also think art is really awesome.  I am so glad I am in middle school~!" 

We are so happy to be riding this bubble of joy with him.

Next Post:  Home Schooling - Marina

The Yearly Lupine Pictures

I have to give a 'Children's Moment' to the church today.  The 'Children's Moment' is not just to the children but to the entire congregation as the children sit around me in the front of the church.   Today's lesson is about Jesus making the blind man see.  It is also about Psalm 133, "How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!"  I asked the pastor where he wanted me to go with this and he said, "Follow your prayerful heart." 

Unfortunately, my prayerful heart makes these kinds of assignments way over the comprehension level of the average 5 year old. 

I decided to call my friend Pat.  She told me that she could look in her many books on children's church lessons and find an example of conflict for me.  I said, "Oh, Pat...I fear that I have plenty of examples of conflict to choose from!"

I decided that today I will tell the following story and I hope that somehow it will tie the two passages together in a way that the kids can relate to and will not humiliate my children.  Well, a little humiliation...  OK, no humiliation...  well... 

Marina and Falcom love their brother Willie.  He has always been a great brother.  He plays with them every game they ask him to play and he enjoys it!  He tells them stories and laughs with them.  He listens to them when they talk!  He swims with them in the ocean!  He has been the kind of brother that every child should have. 

This summer, Willie graduated from high school, has a girlfriend, a job, a truck and friends besides Falcom and Marina.  Between our being busy and Willie wanting to be with his friends, Marina and Falcom have not seen Willie all summer.  Now, their brother DeeJay has moved on and they miss him terribly and now their brother Willie?

As a mother, I would like the story of Jesus and the blind man to mean that Willie suddenly opens his eyes to the reality of the importance of family and stops acting like an average, run of the mill, friend obsessed teenager and jump into a functional adulthood!  But no...  I can not use this story to manipulate Willie and tell him that he is seeing people as trees and that he needs to have the touch put on him.

Instead, I will tell you that when Willie finally came home and Marina and Falcom saw him, they nearly cried!  They were so happy!  And then Marina filled with rage!  She started yelling at him!  "How could you stay away from me so long!"  She started punching him with all that rage!  Lucky Willie is a big man now or he would have been pounded into sausage!

Falcom became very uncomfortable.  "Marina it's OK!  It's OK!  He is here now, let's go watch a movie.  Stop doing that he is here now.  You are going to make him not want to come back."

God wants us to live together in unity.  He also wants us to take another look at what we think we are seeing. Was Marina's punching Willie the right way to tell Willie how he had hurt her?  Was Marina really furious or was she really very sad?  Was Falcom's way of pretending nothing was wrong the right way to deal with his hurt?  What do you think Jesus would have wanted them to do instead?

Sometimes it is challenging to see beyond our first feelings, (the trees) but it is what Jesus would like us to learn to do so that we can live together in unity. 

Where to Begin

It has been a fast summer and I am wondering how to begin blogging again.  This will have to be the start!